Sunday Surprise: Last place is still a victory!

I ran my first 5k today.  It was actually a part of a mini-triathlon.  My team included my husband, who swam 500m, and a friend of ours, Monica, who did the 15k biking.

Our tream pre-race

No suspense, I came in last place in the run, and our team came in last place for teams overall.  I was 6 minutes slower than any other runner, and that really killed it for us.

Let me tell you about today's run though... it included at least 90F degree heat, a dusty road with a fair amount of traffic, even for a Sunday.  The road was bumpy, strewn with garbage here, trees there, parked cars in a few places.  The worst thing was the dead dog.  He was in the road at km marker 2 or so.  He was just entering the phase of decay where you can no longer quite recognize what he once was.  He had a large swarm of flies and his stench covered quite an area.  Yeah, he was gross.  I'm glad since I ran I only had to pass him once... the bikers would have had to pass him three times.   Yuck.

Tagging Monica in the transition from run to bike

I am proud that only 5 bikers lapped me, and I was less than 1km from the end by the time they did.  My initial goal had been to just keep running the whole race.  But I got to the point where my head was spinning and I thought I was going to throw up- as in, my stomach was clenching and I was on the verge of having to stop and do it in the bushes- so I had to take a walk break.  I'm convinced it was the heat that did me in.  So I walked a little, and then ran it in to home to tag Monica onto the bike.

I was so slow that one of our road marshals told me to cheat (he pointed for me to cut across the oval that was the course a whole city block earlier than I was supposed to- for the record, I DID NOT!).  I was so slow that the guy who won the whole thing, finished before my husband even got in the water to do his swim.  (Yes, this tri went run-bike-swim because of the incredible heat we knew would be a part of the day.)

Our team + mascot post-race

So basically, I was really slow.  And I felt like I was going to die, or at least throw up and pass out long before I was done, but definitely by the time I was done.  But I finished it.  I ran my first road race. I got a certificate of completion that I am going to hang on to, danggit!

My next race is on May 8- another 5k- this one, in the States, almost assuredly, without a dead dog.